The New Mexico desert tasted like dust and gunpowder.
Jason shifted gears in the lead truck. The engine groaned, protesting the heat and the incline.
Behind him, two other trucks rattled along the dirt track. They were stolen Model T transports, painted matte beige to blend into the mesas.
In the passenger seat, Sarah studied a compass, her brow furrowed.
"We're off the map, Jason," she said, wiping sweat from her forehead. "Literally. The road ended ten miles back."
"Good," Jason said, squinting through the dust-streaked windshield. "If it's on a map, Hoover can find it."
In the back of the truck, sandwiched between crates of sensitive vacuum tubes, Albert Einstein was shouting something in German. Probably complaining about the suspension.
They had been driving for three weeks. From the snows of New Jersey, through the flatlands of the Midwest, to this alien landscape of red rock and endless sky.
Jason checked the rearview mirror. No black sedans. No Ford mercenaries. Just dust.
"Stop!" Sarah shouted.
Jason slammed on the brakes. The truck skidded to a halt in a cloud of grit.
Ahead, the road was blocked.
Three boulders had been rolled across the track. Sitting on top of the largest rock was a man.
He wore a sombrero and a bandolier of ammunition. He held a rifle across his lap.
"Banditos?" Sarah whispered, reaching for the pistol in the glove box.
Jason looked closer.
"No," he said softly. "Look at the rifle."
It wasn't a Winchester. It was a Mosin-Nagant. Russian issue. Long barrel, bolt action.
And the man wasn't just wearing a poncho. He had a red star pinned to his lapel.
"Pancho Villa's remnants," Jason realized. "Funded by the Bolsheviks."
The history books said the Mexican Revolution ended years ago. But in this timeline, with the Soviets surging in Europe, they were pushing influence everywhere. Even here.
"Stay in the truck," Jason ordered.
He opened the door and stepped out into the heat. He kept his hands visible.
The man on the rock whistled.
Suddenly, ten more men appeared from the sagebrush. They surrounded the truck. They looked hard, hungry, and heavily armed.
"Lost, gringo?" the leader asked. He had a gold tooth and eyes like flint.
"Looking for a quiet place," Jason said.
"This is not quiet," the leader said, patting his Russian rifle. "This is the People's Territory. The toll is... everything."
He gestured to the trucks.
"Cargo? Weapons?"
"Science equipment," Jason said. "Glass and copper."
The leader laughed. "We take the trucks. You walk back to Texas."
One of the bandits moved toward the truck bed, reaching for the canvas tarp covering the equipment.
"Don't touch that!" Jason barked.
The bandit froze. The leader leveled his rifle at Jason's chest.
"You want to die for glass, gringo?"
"I want to hire you," Jason said.
The leader blinked. "Que?"
Jason walked to the side of the truck. He unlocked a heavy steel case bolted to the running board.
He flipped the lid.
Gold.
Twenty bars of bullion. The last liquid assets of Jason Underwood. The emergency fund he had smuggled out of New York.
The gold glittered in the harsh desert sun. The bandits stared. They lowered their rifles instinctively.
"I'm building a facility in the Jemez Mountains," Jason said, his voice steady. "I need security. Men who know the terrain. Men who hate the US Government."
He picked up a bar of gold. He tossed it to the leader.
The man caught it. He weighed it in his hand. It was heavy. Real.
"Five dollars a day," Jason said. "Payable in gold. Plus food and ammo."
The leader looked at the gold, then at his men. They were starving revolutionaries fighting a proxy war for a distant Kremlin. This was more money than they had seen in a lifetime.
The leader bit the gold bar. He grinned.
"My name is Ricardo," the bandit said. He slung his rifle over his shoulder. "And I hate the government very much."
Jason let out a breath.
He wasn't just building a lab anymore. He was building a warlord state.
The Ghost Ranch sat on a high mesa, overlooking a canyon that dropped a thousand feet to the river below.
It was an abandoned boys' school. A collection of adobe buildings with peeling paint and rattlesnakes sunning themselves on the porch.
"It looks... rustic," Einstein said, climbing out of the truck and adjusting his glasses.
"It looks defensible," O'Malley corrected, unloading a crate of Thompson guns.
They spent the day unpacking.
It was a surreal scene. High-tech cyclotrons and centrifuges were set up in a room with a dirt floor. Wires were strung from the rafters.
Ricardo's men patrolled the perimeter, eyeing the strange machines with superstition.
That evening, Jason sat by a campfire on the edge of the cliff. The sunset set the clouds on fire—purple, orange, blood red.
Sarah sat down next to him. She handed him a tin cup of coffee.
"We did it," she said softly. "We disappeared."
Jason took the coffee. "For now."
He looked at the compound. The windows of the main hall were glowing with a strange, eerie blue light.
"The generator works?" Sarah asked, following his gaze.
"The Radionucleotide battery," Jason nodded. "It's powering the lights. And the radio. It's the only electricity for fifty miles."
Sarah shivered, despite the heat. "It's beautiful. And terrifying."
She reached out and took his hand. Her palm was rough.
"Jason, look at us. We're living in a fortress guarded by revolutionaries, powered by atomic fire. We aren't the good guys anymore, are we?"
"We're the alive guys," Jason said. "That's all that matters."
He squeezed her hand. For the first time in months, he felt a flicker of peace. The desert was vast. Silent. Honest.
Then, a dog barked.
Ricardo shouted from the gate.
"Rider approaching!"
Jason stood up, hand going to the pistol in his belt.
A single horse and rider trotted out of the twilight. The horse looked tired.
The rider slid off. It was a woman.
She wore dusty trousers, a men's shirt, and a wide-brimmed hat. She walked with a limp.
"Who are you?" Jason called out.
The woman stopped ten feet away. She looked at the armed bandits. Then at Jason.
"My name is Maria," she said. Her voice was raspy, like dry leaves. "I saw the blue light from the valley. I thought it was a spirit."
"Just science," Jason said. "We don't have food to spare."
"I don't need food," Maria said. She took off her hat. Her hair was gray, streaked with black. Her face was lined with hard years.
She looked at Jason's hands. Then his face.
"You're him," she said. "The Butcher of Broadway."
Jason stiffened. "I don't know who you're talking about."
"Jason Underwood," Maria said. "Or Ezra Prentice. The man who froze New York."
Ricardo and his men shifted uneasily.
"I'm a healer," Maria lied badly. "But I listen to the wireless. The miners in Arizona talk about you. They say you are the devil of capital."
"I'm retired," Jason said.
Maria laughed. She walked closer, ignoring the guns pointed at her.
"You think you ran away?" she asked. "You think this desert is empty?"
She pointed South.
"The Red Flag flies in Tucson, gringo. The copper miners have seized the pits. They are armed with Russian guns."
She pointed North.
"And the Federals are in Santa Fe. Hoover's agents are sweeping the towns, looking for 'foreign agitators.'"
She looked Jason in the eye.
"You didn't find a sanctuary. You found a kill box. You are sitting right between the hammer and the anvil."
Jason looked at the dark horizon.
He thought he had escaped the war. But Maria was right. The war was everywhere.
"Why are you telling me this?" Jason asked.
Maria smiled. It was a dangerous smile.
"Because I hate the Reds," she spat. "And I hate the Feds. And I figure... the enemy of my enemy might have a job for me."
Jason looked at her calloused hands. Gunpowder stains under the fingernails.
She wasn't a healer. She was a survivor. Like him.
"Can you cook?" Jason asked.
"I can shoot," Maria replied. "And I know where the uranium is."
Jason froze.
"Come inside," Jason said. "The coffee is hot."